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Cambridge City Council was 17 years ahead of the launch of London's famous 'Boris bike' cycle scheme when it decided to introduce a free pick-up-drop-off cycle initiative in 1993.

The plan involved initially taking 300 cycles from the police pound to be refurbished and painted green by offenders doing community service at a workshop on Wadloes Road.

It was hoped that the creation of a pool of as many as 1,000 free cycles would ease congestion in Cambridge and cut down on air pollution and cycle thefts.

But ahead of the scheme's launch city councillors warned that it would lead to more thefts rather than fewer, with then Liberal Democrat councillor Andy Lake labelling it a "thieves' paradise".

Large signs advertising the scheme's launch also proved controversial with then Labour councillor Beth Morgan threatening to cut them down with a hacksaw if the council did not remove them.

Ian Gourlay painting one of the green bikes in 1993

It was on Friday, October 22, 1993 that the first 50 green bikes were released onto the streets of Cambridge at 26 locations.

Residents could freely pick up and deposit the bicycles from the community bike parks dotted across the city.

Embarrassingly for city council officials the actual launch outside the Guildhalll had to be delayed on the day because they had forgotten there was a 10am to 4pm cycle ban in Market Square.

By the end of the weekend it was clear that all had not gone well after the scheme's launch - most of the bikes had disappeared.

City council workers recovered 20 of the bikes which had been dumped around the city and many had been vandalised.

News journalist Glenn Thwaites managed to track down two of the bikes being used by two boys who said they found them abandoned on the then orth Arbury housing estate.

Tony Ellis and Jamie Wingrove using the bikes in 1993

Tony Ellis and Jamie Wingrove told him: "We have seen 10 or 12 bikes just left lying in the estate. People are taking them to get home and then just leaving them anywhere or hiding them away so they will be able to use them again later.

City council leader at the time, Simon Sedgwick-Jell, admitted to being mystified by the missing bikes and insisted that it would take some months for the scheme to settle down and operate as intended.

The situation did not improve and such was the elusiveness of the green bikes in the city the News launched a competition for readers to win a set of bike lamps if they could prove they had found one.

Despite the chequered start it even inspired similar schemes led by councils in other areas such as Sandy in Bedfordshire.

Alan Doyle on a green bike in 1993

Cambridge City Council soldiered on, releasing 250 green bikes into the city by December of 1993.

But contemporaneous reports suggested at least 75 of these had been vandalised and Conservative opposition councillors said the scheme would only work if it involved a charge to use the bikes.

It battled on for six months, seeing off two narrow council votes to scrap it and Liberal Democrat proposals to replace it with 'park-and-pedal' initiative for commuters heading into Cambridge from its outskirts.

In April 1994, the council formally decided to bring the controversial project to the end.

The News wrote that Cllr Segwick-Jell believed the scheme had been defeated by human nature.

He said: "It only needed 100 people out of Cambridge's 100,000 population to destroy it and foul it up."